by Jamie Sawyer
“Stand down,” the lead officer said.
The security team did their thing, employing DNA scanners over any patch of exposed skin. The machines flickered affirmative reads, and the dogs almost immediately desisted. I guessed that those bionics were direct cranial interfaces – allowed their controllers to somehow alter their behavioural impulses. The dogs became docile, retreated from the sim pilots.
“They didn’t work so well with Williams…” Martinez said.
“New tech,” a handler said. “They won’t get past us again. We’re supposed to check everything and everyone inbound.”
“You find anything yet?” I asked.
He shrugged, tapped his chest. “Not yet, but I’ll keep trying. Get me a bonus that’ll pay for a nice plot back on Proxima.”
There were four oversized playing cards taped to his chest. Each card had a name on it, with a reward figure in bold type beneath. The faces on the cards had become almost as well known as those of the Lazarus Legion.
CAPTAIN LANCE WILLIAMS. Leader of Williams’ Warfighters, and the arch-traitor. Now the Ace of Spades.
CORPORAL DIEMTZ OSAKA. Second-in-command to the Warfighters; a big Martian bastard of a man. Now the King of Clubs.
PRIVATE ALICIA MALIKA. Just another soldier in an army of millions. Now the Queen of Diamonds.
PRIVATE REBECCA SPITARI. The Queen of Hearts.
Each card had been annotated with sighting details. Some – particularly those of Osaka and Malika – had been striped with tallies, indicating alleged deaths that associated simulants had suffered. The locations spanned Alliance space, as far as Alpha Centauri and as wide as Barnard’s Star.
“It’s the gift that keeps on giving,” the MP said, making a gun out of his forefinger and thumb. “You kill them, and they just keep coming back.”
“Sir,” the aide broke in, “an escort has been arranged—”
“I can’t even be trusted to get down to Medical on my own now? I’ll see to the hand later.” I looked back at the team; noted the slightly frenetic expression on Kaminski’s face. He needed out of here. “See to the Legion; get them settled.”
“Whatever they need,” the aide said.
I nodded at Kaminski. “’Ski; go with Delores. No touching.” To the aide, I said, “You can help me with some directions. I’m trying to track down an old friend…”
We walked together into the main archway that marked the entrance to Calico Base, beneath an enormous security holo that constantly barked the message SUBMIT TO SCANNER SEARCHES ON REQUEST – TERRORISM: TOGETHER WE’LL BEAT IT.
I didn’t want to spend any more time on Calico Base than was absolutely necessary. The place had changed in the ten years since I’d been here; since I’d seen Endeavour and her fleet off into the darkness. All the dusty vaults and tight corridors held for me were ghosts, unfulfilled opportunities.
But I had to do something while I was here; had to salve my conscience. The decision was against my better judgement, because I knew that I would not be able to help – knew that decisions had been taken far above my head – but even so I had to do it. The aide gave me directions, and even arranged an air-car for transport. Then she fucked off exactly as I’d ordered; leaving me alone in the dirty and desperate area of Calico Base. Suited me fine.
This was a prison by any other name. An area to which the dead and dying were relegated, to stop them spreading their pernicious diseases. Except that the diseases here were not physical ailments; the contagion that required quarantining was a mindset. The Alliance, and in particular Command, did not want those stationed here to pollute the rest of the outpost.
A single Military Police guard was posted at a junction.
“Sir,” he said, saluting. “This is a restricted area. I can’t let you go any further.”
“You know who I am, trooper?”
“Yes, sir. You’re Lazarus.”
“Then you’ll know that I have clearance to go wherever I want.”
That was, of course, a lie. I was a lieutenant colonel now, and I was Lazarus, but there were restrictions on my movements just the same as with any other trooper. The difference was reputation.
“Of course, sir.”
“I’m looking for a particular officer. You know where I can find him?”
I pulled up the details on my wrist-comp, placed it under the MP’s nose. His eyes widened a little and he nodded.
“Yes, sir. Cell – I mean room – 11-B. End of this corridor.”
A figure sat alone at a desk in the corner of the room, manipulating a tri-D, the glow of the projection dancing over his face.
“Yes?” he yelled, without looking up. “Come to check I’m still breathing? You take away my bloody dog—”
“It’s me, Joseph.”
Admiral Joseph Loeb, former commanding officer of the UAS Colossus, turned to look at me.
The old admiral – the Buzzard, to those crews fortune enough to have served under him – had a rugged, angular face, but his features instantly softened as he saw me. When he smiled, it looked as though he had not done so in a long time: as though the expression was alien to him.
“How the damn are you, old bastard?” he said. “Come in.”
Despite everything that had happened – everything that was going to happen – Admiral Loeb still wore his duty uniform: pressed, parade-ground fresh. Chin clean-shaven, greyed hair cut close to his scalp. His service cap sat atop a stack of printed plastic sheets. Just waiting for that call to arms.
“Sit, talk,” Loeb said. “As you can probably guess, I don’t get many visitors down here.”
I looked around the chamber. There was little furniture, and the room was in darkness save for the glow of the ships coming and going outside, visible through the obs window. Loeb cleared the stacks of reading material – hardcopy as well as data-slates – from the small couch, and we took up some seats.
“How have you been holding up?” I asked.
“Well enough,” Loeb said. “This is no way for an officer to live, but I’m making do.”
Since our return from the Maelstrom, Loeb had been under what the Navy still rather quaintly referred to as “house arrest”. He was a man used to travelling on starships – as his gaunt, thin appearance demonstrated. Without a command, without a ship, he was a man without a purpose. This – being planet-bound, confined to a small room – was hell for him.
“I’ve been keeping up to date on the news,” he said. “Watching the casts; there’s little else to do in here. Five hundred POWs? That’s quite a result.”
“The feeds lie, Loeb. There were eighty-three, and some of those didn’t make it, but we found Kaminski.”
Loeb’s face illuminated. “Gaia be praised!” he exclaimed.
“And Saul too,” I said. “’Ski is in a better state than the Professor, but they say he’s going to make it.” I sighed. “I want you to know that I don’t blame you, Loeb, and I don’t think that Kaminski does, either.”
“Is he going to be operational?”
I smiled. Loeb knew Sim Ops well by now: knew that being operational, getting back into the tanks, was all that mattered to a proper operator. “Sci-Div will do their tests and we’ll see, but I hope so.”
Loeb settled back into his chair. “I have some news of my own: I ship Corewards next month. They’ve fixed a date for the court-martial.”
“That has to be a good thing.”
“I’m not sure any more. Is hell any better than purgatory?”
“That’s a question for Martinez,” I offered.
Command wanted someone on whom they could pin the blame for the Damascus incident, and Loeb was an easy target. He was a spritely sixty-seven Centaurian years – not much older by Earth-standard measurements – and pushing the door on retirement. Hell, he probably only had a few years of desk service left in him.
“Don’t be like that,” I said. “It could go your way.”
Loeb shook his head. “I severely doubt that, Har
ris. They’ll want to make an example of me. They’ve reassigned the Colossus.”
The Spine traced a silver thread to the orbital docks and the Colossus was clearly visible up there, poking from the metal sheath of the docks. Loeb wiped his hand against the inside of the window, then – as though he’d only just realised that I was watching – quickly drew it back.
“The new captain is a Proximan,” Loeb said. “If you can believe it. They’ve even stripped out all of her original scanner-suites; replaced them with cheap Proxy shit.”
While I had no particular animosity towards the descendants of Proxima Centauri, Loeb was an Alpha Centaurian. There was rivalry between the sons of those two colonies: each claiming that the other was inferior in some respect. The idea of a Proximan – even a Proximan American – manning the Colossus clearly had Loeb riled.
“What’s this?” I asked, pointing to a stack of printed plastic sheets on the desk in the corner. I was trying to change the subject. “Looks like some good tribunal prep.”
There were schematics, maps, photographs. The stack fell open on a particular image; a low-res, tri-D capture of a woman’s face. Her features were a mass of miscellaneous scars; some recent and blotchy, others angular and almost ritualistic. Like a cancer, a black network of veins seethed beneath the skin of her left cheek: moving with a life of its own. Her black hair was cut short, an arc of metal studs reaching her temples. Strangely, she seemed almost impossible to age; her features so unusual.
“It’s research,” Loeb said. “Quite a looker, isn’t she? Reminds me a lot of my ex-wife. She’s the commanding officer of the Shanghai Remembered.”
The Shanghai Remembered had been the flagship of the Directorate fleet sent to intercept us at the Damascus Rift. That explained the weird black shit beneath her skin: the result of a symbiotic graft with her starship. She felt everything that her ship felt, could react faster and with greater efficacy: was equipped with a full range of in-head comms apparatus. She wasn’t quite human, and yet so much more – an engineered soldier, created for a purpose.
“She’s a clone,” Loeb said. “But she’s not like the line troops. She’s worse: a custom-made job, sanctioned by the Executive.” He scowled. “Her name is Director-Admiral Kyung, but they call her the Assassin of Thebe…”
Loeb’s voice trailed off, and he suddenly seemed a very long way away.
I was alone. I felt my hand trembling, the shake in my chest that told me I needed a drink, and needed one now. Thebe was a moon of Jupiter: a world many, many light-years from Calico Star. A world that had once housed an Alliance science station known as Jupiter Outpost…
“What’s wrong?” Loeb asked.
“She was at Thebe…” I whispered. A heady mix of hate and remorse welled within me.
“That’s what I just said. A lot older than she looks, that one, and the Shanghai has been refitted more times than I’d care to say… But it’s the same ship. Scuttlebutt is that the Shanghai made it back from Damascus,” Loeb said, quietly, conspiratorially. “And if your man, Kaminski, came back as well: that confirms it. The ship is still out there.”
Maybe it was a coincidence that the Shanghai had been dispatched by the Directorate to take us on in Damascus. Odds should’ve been that time-dilation, and the distances involved, threw Kyung and I to different fates: to paths that would never intersect.
“Except that God doesn’t do coincidences…” I whispered.
Not my words, but Martinez’s. They seemed to have taken on some significant import: looking at the stylised globe that represented Jupiter Outpost, at the campaign badge worn by the Assassin of Thebe’s crew.
I stood from the couch, abruptly. “I have to be going. I’m expected in Medical.”
“Good to see you, Harris,” Loeb said. “Take care.”
“And you,” I said, and I turned to leave: Kyung’s mutilated face scorchingly precise in my mind’s eye.
CHAPTER SEVEN
WHEN THE WAR’S DONE
Almost as soon as I’d left Loeb’s quarters, I was apprehended by two fully decked MPs.
“Are you lost, sir?” the lead trooper asked. Both wore imposing black flak-suits that completely covered them. The helmet visor was flipped shut, making their appearance a mystery. “The infirmary is in Sector Ninety-Eight.”
I doubted that these two had found me by chance. They were probably watching my movement via the security systems; via the surveillance drones that populated the tunnel junctions.
“I was just on my way,” I lied. I’d been intending to catch a drink, to do something to blot out Loeb’s disclosure about Kyung.
The lead MP tapped his shoulder badge. “I’m Sergeant Nico, part of base security. Dr Hunt is waiting for you in the Medical Sector. The elevator shaft is the quickest way down there.”
“This way, sir,” the other trooper said. He was much bigger than his colleague; a hulk of a man.
“Let’s walk,” I said. “I could do with the exercise. Dr Hunt can wait.”
“Yeah, man, sure,” the trooper said.
Calico’s main infirmary was filled with a mixture of personnel: military – Army, Navy, and lots of maintenance crews – but just as many mining staff. They sat in despondent groups in the concourses, always in their vac-suits; crowded the corridors.
“Move aside, citizen,” the MP from my escort said. “We’ve got a genuine VIP coming through.”
He nudged his carbine into the chest of a miner who had blocked our passage. The civvie stood aside, but I could feel his eyes boring into the back of my head as we passed.
“These guys never learn,” the other trooper said. “Dumb fucks. Always getting caught in rockfalls…”
I saw a lot of crush and impact injuries. I guessed that this was a common ailment among the miners – a risk that had to be managed but couldn’t be eliminated.
“Hey, Nico,” I said. “You want to take it down a level? We’re guests here, and I’m sure that these people don’t take kindly to me queue-jumping.”
“Yeah, sir. Sorry.”
A small man in a white coat pushed in our direction. He carried himself with an air of certainty that suggested he was in charge down here, and his name-tag – DR HUNT: CHIEF MEDICAL OFFICER – confirmed it. He read from a data-slate, continually running a hand through his bright blond hair. I didn’t know the man, but remembered that Liberty Point’s last chief medico had told me a new recruit was due to take his place.
“I guess that you must be Dr Viscarri’s successor?” I asked.
“Hmmm,” he answered. When he looked up, he appeared almost angered by our presence. “I’ve been chief medico for over two years.”
“I’ve been away,” I said.
“Command has sent orders for a refit,” Nico said. “This is Colonel Harris.”
Hunt shook his head. “We already have one of your troopers down here.”
“That’d be Private Kaminski,” I said. “How’s he doing?”
“Hmmm,” Hunt said, commencing to read from the data-slate. “He’s got elevated neural readings and the data-port in his right forearm might need replacing. After what he’s been through, he’ll need a full psych-eval. All tests. He’s not getting certified before I can look at his results.”
“But he will be,” I said, forcefully.
“He’s broken,” Hunt said with a shrug. “Just like you. Come this way, and we’ll talk about that hand.”
Hunt led the way to a quieter area of the infirmary, away from the civilian crowds.
“You’re lucky that Alliance forces fell back to Calico,” he said. “While this facility doesn’t have a regeneration pod, it does have an extensive supply of cybernetics. In reality, I doubt that a man of your age and disposition would survive a week in a regen pod: with a blood pressure like yours, it’d be a risky proposition. There’s every prospect that you’d develop an immune reaction. You could end up with a failed graft.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence.”
“Just saying it like it is. But there is an alternative. The miners here; they aren’t exactly a careful bunch. This is the safest course.”
A female medtech wheeled a table into the room. A glass tube sat on top, and inside was a metal hand, tapering in a trail of bio-organic cabling. The digits were multi-jointed but crude, whereas the upper limb was graphite-coated and armoured.
“It’s a combat model,” Hunt said. “Made from a reinforced plastic-titanium compound. The grip response is far improved over your original model.”
“My real hand?”
“Your real hand,” Hunt said back at me. “I know that it’s not pretty, and it won’t win you any friends, but it’s one of the better military models.” Without waiting for my consent to operate, he added, “Do you want to use the auto-doc for the surgery, or for me to arrange a surgeon to do it manually?”
“Manually. I prefer the old ways.”
“Why did I already know the answer to that question?” Hunt grumbled. “This really would be easier if you’d trust the damned machine instead.”
“I have a problem with auto-docs.”
Just over six hours later, I was awake on a treatment couch with my new bionic hand attached. The neural rethread was done via a nanite injection, which was the easiest part of the process, and I was asleep through the rest: the reweaving of titanium-composite grafts to the existing bone network, the reconnection of the surviving nerves. I felt groggy from the anaesthetic, but it was a fast-acting version and I knew that I’d be up and about within minutes.
I examined the hand. A complex arrangement of attenuators and semi-concealed hydraulics, the exposed metalwork glimmering softly under the treatment-room lights. It’s amazing the number of individual bones, the variety of muscles, in the human hand: each of those natural occurrences had now been replaced by a man-made alternative. Palm up, I clenched the hand and watched the fingers move. The action caused an involuntary wave of revulsion in me. No matter how advanced the appendage was, it was still foreign. Not my own.